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Govt to sell Jiwasraya assets, including Jakarta mall, to pay back creditors
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The offices of state-owned insurance company PT Asuransi Jiwasraya in Jakarta. (Antara/Galih Pradipta)
T
he State-Owned Enterprises (SEO) Ministry plans to sell State-owned insurer PT Asuransi Jiwasraya’s assets, including a shopping mall and a collection of mutual funds in an effort to pay clients’ claims.
The ministry’s spokesperson Arya Sinulingga said it would start selling the assets once the Jiwasraya taskforce in the legislature agreed to the plan.
“We are going to make an insurance holding company, and it can buy Jiwasraya’s office so that the assets stay within SOEs,” he said on Thursday as reported by kompas.com.
Cilandak Town Square (Citos), a shopping mall in South Jakarta, is also going to be offered for sale. Arya said that the mall would be sold for between Rp 2 trillion (US$136.2 million) and Rp 3 trillion but that no bidders had yet appeared.
Read also: No talks on a bailout for Jiwasraya, audit agency says
He added that the ministry would prioritize other state-owned enterprises in buying the assets. However, interested state-owned enterprises would need to offer competitive prices as the ministry would not sell the assets below market price.
Jiwasraya was investigated for corruption and asset mismanagement after the insurer failed to pay out more than Rp 16 trillion to its customers in matured insurance policies as of January.
Arya added that personal assets from those who allegedly took part in the Asuransi Jiwasraya corruption case would not be available for sale unless there was a court ruling to that effect.
“If the suspects lose at the District Court, maybe they will appeal to the Supreme Court, and this process may repeat itself several times,” he said. “It can take two to three years to reach a court ruling.”
The government, therefore, had decided to sell Jiwasraya's assets in advance to repay customers’ claims because a legal decision would take a long time, Arya said.
Read also: Jiwasraya’s losses from investing in questionable stocks reach Rp 13t
Previously, the Attorney General's Office (AGO) seized Rp 13.1 trillion worth of assets from six suspects in the alleged corruption case of PT Asuransi Jiwasraya. The AGO has confiscated jewelry, land certificates, vehicles, coal and gold mines and even captive Arowana fish from the six suspects.
The suspects include PT Asuransi Jiwasraya’s former finance director, Harry Prasetyo, its former director, Hendrisman Rahim, and its former investment and finance head, Syahmirwan. (eyc)
